Qualifications & Educational Support
★ PRIORITY FOCUS AREA
Policies and pathways that provide consistent standards for educators to achieve higher education
The National ECE Workforce Center recognizes this need and organizes its work around five essential policy areas, or key topics, identified by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) Early Childhood Workforce Index as being critical for supporting the ECE workforce and higher-quality services for children and families. Each of these policy areas directly impacts the ECE workforce’s ability to thrive.
For a deeper dive into the status of qualifications and educational supports, including state progress in this space, see the Early Childhood Workforce Index chapter on this topic, and for more resources to support your own efforts to improve access to qualifications and educational supports, see the section below.

Related Resources

Promising Career Pathway Approaches: Registered Apprenticeships
This National ECE Workforce Center research-to-practice brief describes key considerations for system leaders and researchers interested in developing, strengthening, and/or studying registered apprenticeships for current educators and those entering the workforce.
Published 2025

Unifying Framework for the Early Childhood Education Profession
This report is a “consensus” document developed by Power to the Profession, a national collaborative of leading organizations. It outlines […]
Published 2020

Creating the Conditions for Family Child Care to Thrive
This 2019 report from All Our Kin highlights methods to equitably support family child care providers. Readers are provided with […]
Published 2019
Browse Other Key Topics
Compensation & Financial Relief Strategies
Initiatives and investments to ensure compensation equal to the value of early educators’ work
Financial Resources
Public investment in the ECE workforce and broader ECE system
Work Environment Standards
Standards for providing safe and supportive work environments for early educators
Workforce Data
State-level collection of important data on the size, characteristics, and working conditions of the ECE workforce